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John Stanislaus Joyce

When James Joyce introduced his future wife, Nora Barnacle, to his father John, the reply he got was said to be “well she will certainly cling to you!”

Born in Cork in 1849, John Stanislaus Joyce was the only son of James and Ellen. His mother’s family claimed to be related to Daniel O’Connell. Aged 31, John inherited a substantial amount of property on his father’s death, and soon afterwards moved to Dublin where he worked as a secretary at a distillery company.

John met Mary “May” Murray while singing in the choir at the Church of the Three Patrons in Rathgar, Dublin, and they married in May 1880, despite his mother’s disapproval. After the wedding, she returned to Cork and never saw or spoke to her son again. John and Mary had ten surviving children, the eldest of whom was James, who would go on to become one of the most famous writers of the twentieth century.

John was a supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell, and was angry at his treatment by the Catholic Church. James wrote a poem “Et Tu Healy” on the death of Parnell, when he was 8 years old. John had the poem published and even sent a copy to the Vatican library. No copies remain.

In 1882 Joyce was appointed a Rates Collector by the Collector-General of Rates and Taxes, but the salary wasn’t enough to maintain the large family, the repayments on various mortgages John had taken out on his inherited properties and his drinking. After accusations of malpractice in work, he was warned and put on probation. In early 1882 John Joyce lost his rate collecting job and, by November of 1892, he was entered into "Stubbs Gazette", the official register of bankruptcies, and was suspended from work. In 1893 he was dismissed with a pension, and so was the beginning of the family’s slide into poverty as they moved from house to house, eventually having lived at 22 different addresses leaving a trail of unpaid rent arrears behind them.

John features in many of his famous son’s works. As a young man in "Ulysses", Stephen Hero in "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man", as Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker in "Finnegan’s Wake" and as the narrator’s uncle in the stories “The Sisters” and “Araby” in "Dubliners". He also forms, in part, the basis for Leopold Bloom, the main protagonist in "Ulysses". In the Hades section of "Ulysses", Simon Dedalus passes his wife’s grave in Glasnevin and is greeted by the real superintendent of the cemetery John O’Connell.

Mary Joyce died in 1903 and, despite his poor management of the household, Stanislaus managed to outlive her by 28 years. He died aged 82 in December 1931 and is buried in Glasnevin, alongside his wife.

After his death, James told a friend “The humour of "Ulysses" is his; its people are his friends. The book is his spittin’ image”. James sent £2 from Switzerland to pay for his father’s headstone. James, died in 1941 and is buried in Zurich, in Switzerland.